


The Invasion of Korriban - Fixed

by SonneillonV



Series: Sonne's SWTOR Universe [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Bioware is the worst railroading DM I've ever had, Non-Explicit M/M, Salty Fix-It AU, South London Represent, The words "British Accent" encompass a whole lot actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 11:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30054840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonneillonV/pseuds/SonneillonV
Summary: A short fic in which Korriban is adequately defended from the Eternal Fleet's invasion, Darth Atroxa doesn't die with two minutes of screen time, Sith who are pillars of the Empire actually act like they deserve their authority, and Thexan and Arcann get their asses kicked. Because Bioware declaring by fiat that none of our Sith OCs would have been able to help defend one of the Empire's most significant core worlds is BS. Can you tell I have issues with KotFE?  Yeah, I have issues.
Series: Sonne's SWTOR Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211045
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	The Invasion of Korriban - Fixed

It was the second day of the enemy siege.

Korriban’s atmosphere roiled with turbulence. Fragments of red, sharp-edged rock flew like hailstones, driven into cutting spirals by the downdraft of hundreds of engines. Their whine was deafening, underscored by blaster fire, screams of pain, and commands shouted into the stinging wind.

Jamming frequencies formed an impenetrable net above the planet, and Atroxa knew before her hastily-appointed field tech could report: none of their emergency transmissions were getting through. No help was coming. Dromund Kaas, so close that if the caldera didn’t cast veils of color across the sky she could have seen it shining in the night, was maddeningly beyond her reach.

“So be it,” she ground out through her teeth. “Launch the fighters. Tell Lord Vakus to lead the infantry feint into the valley. May the Force serve us well today… and may there be only one commander left to kill,” she added to herself, between her teeth. Yesterday one of her pilots, a senior Academy student pressed into service alongside her peers to fly the short-range fighters the Academy kept on hand for exercises, reported that she had managed to punch through enemy anti-aircraft fire and land a hit on one of the enemy commanders. She could not, however, confirm his death… only that it had been a hit, and that his battalion had retreated to their forward camp for emergency medical care.

“We shall see,” she muttered. Her strategy had been deployed on the basis of yesterday’s combat. The two commanders, so identical they were either twin brothers or clones, had marched out together at the center of their forces’ front and carved a bloody swath through the Academy Guard who had gone out to meet them. The best of the best, charged with the defense of the Dark Council’s chambers, had been decimated by these two. Now their bodies lay invisible in the dust, bloody crimson armor being slowly buried under crimson rock. Korriban was the homeworld of the Sith, bearer of all their most sacred temples and tombs. They had lost it repeatedly to the Jedi, and their history had been destroyed, the records of their proud ascension wiped from the galaxy in acts of cultural genocide which the traitor Malgus had repaid by striking directly at Coruscant and destroying the Jedi temple. “Insensate evil,” they had called it. “A massacre, unconscionable, evidence of Sith depravity.” Jedi hypocrites never could admit to sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

Atroxa’s gloved fingertips dragged across the glass surface of the battlemap, and the glowing lines rippled in response. She was commander of the Sphere of Military Offense now. She was a member of the Council, and she would not see Korriban lost once more, their children slaughtered, their culture and learning smashed into the dust. These insolent fools who dared set foot on this sacred ground would die screaming, and their shades would be torn apart by generations of ancient Sith Masters who lurked beneath these stones, and hungered. She would ensure it.

This time, she would also be front and center. Let them meet her, if they dared.

But what she found, hours into the battle, as she carved her way toward the commander in white and he toward her, was that he was alone - his black-clad twin was nowhere to be seen.

_ Advantage mine, _ she decided. She barked orders into her comm to locate the other commander NOW - if he was waiting for her to be occupied with his twin before stabbing her in the back, she didn’t intend to fall prey to such kindergarten tactics.

Her comm crackled. [My lord. Commander black has been spotted bolstering the western offensive. They’re pressing us hard. New orders?]   
  
“Hold out,” Atroxa told the answering pilot. “Grant air support as you can without abandoning the dogfight. I’ll come as soon as I’ve dealt with Commander White.”   
  
[My lord.]   
  
Commander white stood across from her. His left hand had been replaced with an ugly black prosthetic, and a mask covered his left face and eye. A good hit then, a solid, maiming hit, but not a mortal one. Pity.

“<You have desecrated sacred ground,>” she said in old Sith, ritual Sith, the language inscribed on the tombstones. “<You will pay for it in blood.>”

He answered her in galactic standard. “The only blood spilled today will be yours.”

They came together in a clash that sent a pulse of energy outward, staggering his knights. With their pikes they closed in to assist their leader, but she flung them into one another with a wave of her hand and drew her rage up through her feet, letting it sizzle through her blood. This was true purity a jedi could envy, this was harmony of purpose, every atom of her being, every surge of the Force within her focused on the downfall of this enemy and the salvation of her home. She could taste him in The Force, hateful and bitter, in agony from the wounds he had been dealt the day before. But his agony drove him onward, and she knew his pain merely empowered the hate inside him and made him even more dangerous.

She was a twi’lek woman, born into slavery, who had ascended to the highest seat of authority in an xenophobic and prejudiced Empire. He would find she could match him pain for pain.

Their battle decimated the rock plain on which they fought. They created new craters and stumbled across them, battering one another, exchanging ground. Eventually his knights stopped trying to help, and formed a wedge to contain the battle and prevent anyone from assisting her. She could have laughed… as if she needed assistance to deal with this upstart human whelp. She thought that until his metal hand closed around her wrist and twisted, tearing ligaments, crushing the bones, forcing her fingers open despite all her efforts.

Her lightsaber dropped.

She saw his saber closing in, and heard a whining scream, like a ship’s engines in atmosphere.

His attention shifted just slightly. His coup de grace was a hair too slow. She got her foot up, kicked his wrist away, wrenched herself from his grip and tumbled across the sharp rocks. Rather than come after her, he braced himself as a Fury-class Interceptor, strike foils raised, buzzed the battlefield low enough to buffet them with clouds of dust and flying gravel. As it streaked past, she thought she saw something drop from it. Then she felt it - a red pulse in The Force, the presence of another Sith.

More engines screamed, and Atroxa let herself flop onto her back and stare up at the sky, where the atmosphere was afire with the friction of hundreds of ships breaking, laying curtains of green fire across the triangular ships of the invaders.

_ How? _ She whispered into the Force, laughing softly.  _ How? _

A stone’s throw from her, Commander White was demanding the same of one of his knights. “HOW?” he roared. But the knight had no opportunity to answer. A golden line cut through the dust, flanked by streaks of red and lightning-purple.

~ _ Recover yourself, Atroxa.~  _ She recognized the fulsome mental caress of her fellow Council member, Darth Nox. ~ _ We’ll keep him busy.~ _

~ _ We’re gonna fucking merc his arse.~ _ THAT was Darth Scion, not a member of the Council, but powerful in his own right. His husband, Lord Kryos, was one of Atroxa’s fellow blademasters and one of few other Sith she held in true respect. Scion, on the other hand… she grimaced at the coarse bluntness of his mental touch, like a hammer to the head, as if his south-continent accent wasn’t bad enough. ~ _ Fucking SHRED this asshole. Rip the fucking entrails out of ‘im. C’mon, Nox, let’s fuck him up. _ ~

~ _ Well said, _ ~ Nox replied with velvet amusement, and then Atroxa could see them through the dust, circling the Commander with another male Sith, Mirialan, carrying two red sabers and wearing a long coat… Teleon Virulion, Lord Kryos’ apprentice and protege. If Scion couldn’t get his husband onto the battlefield, Virulion was probably the next best thing. He couldn’t compare to Scion and Nox in experience, but he would have trained alongside Darth Scion enough that his assistance wouldn’t hinder the two more experienced Sith. The Force thrummed with their communion - Scion, a potent telepath, was linking the three of them together in a form of battle meditation. They would fight as one, instinctively working together instead of at odds, and Atroxa felt a grim appreciation of their commitment - Sith didn’t commune with one another casually. To open up their shields and accept one another in such an intimate way meant they were prepared to surrender everything to this battle for victory. That brought a trickle of peace that spread like warmth through Atroxa’s belly… they weren’t here for personal glory. They understood what was at stake.

They cut through the knights who charged them as if they weren’t even there, Scion’s telekinesis causing ripples of air pressure like small peals of thunder as he swept them out of his path and advanced on the Commander, who stood ready to meet them. The air crackled as Nox spilled Force-lightning onto her foes, drowning them in purple-white electricity that poured down around them in bottomless cascades of light. Through the gap they made, eyes gleaming red, Teleon launched himself at Commander White with a very familiar grace, his lean frame cutting through the dust like a flung spear. Of course his opening salvo didn’t break the Commander’s defense, but that wasn’t the point; the point was to keep him busy, fighting, turning, while Nox and Scion cleared the battlefield. When Scion joined him, Teleon fell back slightly, and they shared the Commander between them, battering him from both sides with such speed and fury that even a creature of his terrible power was hard pressed to keep up. The commander bared his teeth and focused more on Scion, as he should - though Scion was a scrawny thing, the product of years of early malnutrition, he practically carried his own gravity well with him, his presence in the force pulsing like a black hole. And even he was a couple inches taller than Nox, who forced the Commander to abandon his defense and fling himself out of the way as a lightning bolt as thick as a tree coalesced in the atmosphere above him and stabbed down like an orbital strike, leaving a blackened crater where he had been standing.

[My lord!] Atroxa’s comm crackled, atmospheric disturbance playing havoc with the signals. [Commander Black is on his way toward the mesa! He’s closing on your position!]

_ No. _ Atroxa forced herself to drag in air. She pulled in the pain of her shattered wrist, folding it into her heart, letting it beat raw and hot beneath her ribcage. With her good hand she pushed herself up and summoned her saber to her. Any duelist worth their salt practiced with both hands. She would bolster the others against the second twin’s arrival. Four on two was good odds, especially with help as competent as Nox and Scion. She reached out toward Nox, since she was less intensely engaged. ~ _ His twin is coming. Prepare yourselves.~ _

Nox reached back, one dark, delicate hand stretching toward Atroxa even as the other cast lightning toward the commander in the midst of whirling, relentless saber strikes. The mental bond between the three of them allowed the males a perfect sense of where the bolts were coming from, and they avoided them as deftly as if they’d been gently lobbed apples. The Commander had to jerk his lightsaber hilt up to catch them on the part of the blade that wasn’t locked with Scion’s saberstaff, then throw that lock aside before Teleon could whirl up under his guard and stab both sabers toward his back. 

_ ~Join us,~ _ she whispered, and everything in Atroxa rebelled against that notion. Open her mind, her heart, to these people? Her peers, yes, but also her competition? Scion was a war hero - he would have been a popular choice for Councilor of the Sphere of Military Offense, and besides, he was a pureblood, not a filthy alien like her. Not to mention, allied with both Marr AND Vowrawn? If she made herself vulnerable to him, he might strike, assured of popular support. That thought made her recoil.

_ ~Atroxa.~ _ Four of the commander’s knights charged Nox, who fried them in their armor as casually as one might swat a fly. Her perfectly painted nails curled in Atroxa’s direction. ~ _ JOIN US. While there’s still time.~ _ She was a dark angel in the blowing dust, her ebony hair a riot of wind-teased curls, her eyeless face covered by a silken sash and net of silver cord and precious stones. Her battle armor was elegant in a way Atroxa could never have matched, billowing silk framing her pale arms, dark plates with traditional cord ties hugging her curves.

_ ~… I can’t.~ _ It wasn’t a refusal. Atroxa loved no one, trusted no one. It was the only way she’d survived this long. She couldn’t maneuver and make power plays like the more popular Sith Lords could. She was reasonably loyal to Marr as her counterpart, respected him, understood him to uphold a rigid and ruthless code of honor. But there was no room for vulnerability when you were beset from all sides, when the very people you protected wanted you dead and cast out. ~ _ I CAN’T.~ _

She pulled her wounded arm from her sleeve and tucked it under her armor. It hurt, but it could stay nestled there, out of her way. Binding her overcloak at the waist, she adjusted her off-hand grip on her saber and moved in, exhaling, reading the rhythm of the fight between the three men before darting in to try to cut White down. He charged in under her strike and elbowed her in the face, knocking her aside and managing to nearly impale her. She battered his strike aside at the last second, and then Scion and Virulion caught up and prevented him from pressing his advantage. She growled, thrown out of harmony, and tried to find The Force to give her strength.

_ ~Atroxa, quit being stubborn,~ _ Nox insisted. ~ _ Let us share your pain and together we’ll defeat them.~ _

“No!” Atroxa snarled aloud. “I don’t trust you that much! Do you think I’m a fool?”   
  
Nox’s full mouth pursed. “At the moment?”

Atroxa nearly staggered under the icepick sensation of being telepathically yelled at by Darth Scion. ~ _ COME OFF IT, YOU DAFT BINT. THIS ARSEHOLE’S ON SOME BARE SHIT, YOU GET ME? BRING FUCKING ARMS TO ‘IM.~ _

_ ~My lord.~ _ Teleon’s mental voice was cool and dark, like the still waters of an underground lake untouched by sunlight. It soothed the raw edges Scion’s touch left behind. ~ _ I’m buffering Scion’s strength. It will hurt, but not this much. Help us now, and we can crush them before they move on to Dromund Kaas.~ _

_ ~And in return, you’ll kill me,~ _ she returned, trying to find a hole in the battle to get her saber in, shifting her weight in frustration, feeling the seconds tick away as Commander Black raced toward them. She could almost feel him now, his intent, his purity of purpose. He wasn’t driven by the rage that drove his brother. 

Virulion’s eyes flashed crimson. ~ _ Perhaps. But not before we kill both of them.~ _

Atroxa hitched. That was the crux, wasn’t it? Could she sacrifice everything to defend Korriban, to see these terrible enemies defeated? When it had been just her, standing alone, she had been ready.

Ready, yes. Ready to fall to her enemies. Not her supposed allies.   
  
Nox regarded her from behind that strip of dark silk. ~ _ If you joined us,~ _ she said simply, ~ _ Then you could know for certain, and let go of your fear.~ _

Atroxa remembered the sounds of her own shrieks as a slaver carried her childhood self away from her parents. She remembered sloppy, sweaty hands and mouths bitter with liquor, the slap of skin on skin, acrid urine and perspiration stench smearing across her flesh. The terror of an inquisitor’s cold grasp, the endless, screaming darkness of Korriban that threatened to eat her alive before she had understood that it would consume only her weakness, that it would make her like itself - dark, barren, and strong.

Her lekku swung as she turned. ~ _ You,~ _ she thought, reaching for Nox, ~ _ know NOTHING of fear.~ _

They connected.

It felt like grabbing an exposed power line. Her back arched, lekku slicing the air in graceful curves as it surged through her. All her indecision, her mistrust, her wrong footedness was torn out of her by the roots and she was scoured clean, hitched to a comet that blazed in a perfect circuit between Nox, Scion, Virulion, and herself. The Force hit her like a train, all three of them channeling in perfect harmony… she could do nothing but ride along and let it take her, and let their whispers drown her as she sank into their battle meditation. Scion was a bottomless well of rage tempered only by a clarity of purpose she never would have credited to him, burning like the heart of a molten planet, the stench of coal and ash rolling across her tongue. Beside him Virulion was a shadowed stream, slipping under the Commander’s strikes and around his guard, an analytical mind driven by a powerful undertow that yearned to smash his enemy against the rocks. Nox blazed with energy like a desert sun, an endless current of power that made everything sharp and clear. Her conviction surged into Atroxa and her pain and weariness vanished. She forgot her misgivings. The fight was before her, and she suddenly knew she could batter the Commander into submission, she could fight him until the stars fell and the world went dark- she had never been more alive or more focused in her  _ life _ . 

_ ~Merc him, fam.~ _ Scion’s hungry intent pulled them all back on target. ~ _ It’s playtime now, innit?~ _

Atroxa moved in, drawn into their web, a space opened for her as naturally as if she was stepping into a dance. ~ _ Oh, yes,~ _ her soul sang out. ~ _ Let’s play.~ _

This time it was Scion who struck the first blow. His saber grazed the Commander’s arm as he lifted it to fend off Atroxa, who stayed close to Virulion so his twin blades could help defend the gap in her defenses. The commander’s armor blackened and parted under the blade, but only barely. It left him burned but intact. He tried to turn on Atroxa, as the weakest opponent, and remove her from the fight, but Scion and Virulion immediately pressed him with such savage brutality that he had no choice but to leave her be and defend himself, and she scored the next hit, stabbing her lightsaber up against his thigh from behind. Again his armor caught most of the blow, redirecting it around the curve of his leg, but she caught his flesh and left a deep, sizzling score. The stench of burned meat filled the air and he staggered, his stance disrupted. 

The very moment Atroxa knew what she was going to do, so did her battle-mates. It was so effortless and natural she marveled that she had never allowed herself to do this before. Scion and Virulion shifted their attacks toward the Commander’s front simultaneously, forcing him to focus his defenses. She deactivated her saber and slammed the hilt into its holster, lashing out at his wounded thigh with one foot and reaching with her good hand for the wide belt that wrapped around his armored robes. He sensed the danger and tried to turn, saber sweeping toward her, but Scion snapped out a hand and caught his wrist. And then they had him - off-balance, open, and vulnerable - and Virulion’s blood-red blade sliced upward toward his stomach.

Atroxa felt Nox’s scream of rage and denial an instant before the blast hit.

Like a pop of air pressure, like a shockwave, it caught every single one of them, the Commander included, and blew them off their feet. They scattered like a handful of grain, each trying to roll back to their feet with some semblance of grace, but that ill wind continued to batter them. Commander Black had arrived, and Nox slammed her hands together, a clap of thunder and a twisting bolt of lightning battering the other twin. Black held his own hand out and caught that lightning, digging in his feet and standing his ground. His telekinetic assault lessened with his attention divided, and Atroxa knew, in that gut-deep way that she knew everything relevant about every member of her team, that she should get behind Scion, that he could shield them all, so she rolled there just in time to catch Virulion and the two of them used each other to gain their feet. Scion dug into a low, mountain stance, knife-hand stretched out before him, his stiffened fingers carving a furrow into the telekinetic wave and splitting it off on either side. 

_ ~Back me,~ _ he sent, and they complied without hesitation, squaring up just in time to meet Commander White as he regained himself and advanced toward them.

Nox ripped her hands away from the stream of lightning. Her lightsaber ignited, and a crackling wind whipped around her in a perfect globe as she darted across the field and flung herself at Commander Black. He drew his saber to fend her off while focusing one hand on the telekinetic battering he was trying to give Scion. White stepped in, moving slower and more cautiously but with no less deadly intent. Atroxa stepped up to meet him. Virulion instantly, easily fell in line, helping her push White into an angle that was oblique to Scion, where he was less likely to be drawn into the combat as their sabers flared and bounced off one another. Nox’s _Niman_ was deft and relentless - her saber spun in swift orbits and her free hand crackled with lightning, stabbing and thrusting wherever her attacks left him open. But better than actually damaging him, her onslaught forced him to move… and as he moved, he couldn’t keep pressing Scion, and Scion formed a tight spiral of telekinetic power and slammed it through his attack. It hit Commander Black like a rock drill and he gave an undignified squawk as he went flying, fragments of his armor scoured off and leaving frayed threads in their wake.

White snarled. “THEXAN!” He renewed his assault against Atroxa, but she was ready and she was not alone. For every ounce of attention he focused on her, Virulion made him pay for it with graceful, needling stabs and thrusts that forced him to keep a tight defense. And then Scion, no longer forced to shield them from “Thexan’s” power, joined the fight and rather than hold that ground, White chose to launch himself into the air, Force-leaping over all of them and skidding in the dust at his counterpart’s side when he landed. He braced his saber just in time to catch Nox’s renewed lightning attack as Thexan got to his feet, and the two of them stood back to back against the four Sith Lords (well… three Sith lords and a very competent apprentice).

_ ~Fuck _ ,~ was Scion’s eloquent response.   
  
_ ~Help is coming,~ _ Teleon reminded him. Through her connection with them, Atroxa felt her stomach settle with the conviction that yes, help was coming. They knew it, so she knew it. She didn’t know what kind of help and it didn’t matter… someone Teleon loved, judging by the faint glow of faith and trust that colored his thoughts on the matter. Nox fell into formation and the four of them stood strong, united, every one of them ready to die as long as they took these two foes with them. Atroxa didn’t feel tired. Discouragement couldn’t touch her. She smiled at her foes, and Thexan, who was facing her, merely looked blank.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said, and felt a dark, hungry amusement sweep her bond-mates. “We won’t bury you with our dead. Whoever you’ve left behind will never find your burnt and shattered bones.” Scion paced, his golden saberstaff humming ominously, and though his face was hidden behind a featureless, polished mask she could FEEL his feral, sharp-toothed grin. 

“If we fall here,” Thexan said calmly, a little distantly, “they won’t look. Arcann?”   
  
Commander White, ‘Arcann’, clicked his cybernetic fingers together and growled. “ _ Crush them.” _

A rippling darkness drew together over their heads. The air seemed to rip open, screaming as if in birth pangs, and columns of Nox’s lightning stabbed down, leaving craters where they touched. Atroxa could predict the streams as if they were placid, ordinary trees. They didn’t even graze her as she and Virulion charged Thexan, and Scion, on the other side, took on Arcann, matching fury for fury and cunning for cunning. Thexan was a better opponent, quicker, more analytical, but also more reserved. Nox’s lightning kept them moving, forced them away from one another when they tried to stand back to back in defense, and Arcann’s enraged battering of Scion, which Scion returned with enthusiasm, made it dangerous for Thexan to get too close. They traded blows and ground, back and forth, but Atroxa and Virulion couldn’t score on Thexan, nor he on them - they were even breathing in unison as they worked together, three sabers flashing, and every time Thexan tried to pierce Atroxa’s defenses on her wounded side Teleon was there, closing the gap and diverting his defense to open him to her saber. 

In contrast, Arcann and Scion WERE scoring on each other, but with every glancing blow Scion’s energy only ramped upward. Atroxa realized distantly that the rumors of him being a sexual masochist were VERY true, because the more aroused he became, the more she lusted for Thexan’s blood, to sink her nails into him and rip him apart in an orgy of violence. She also remembered his reputation as a hero of the war on Balmorra - a walking massacre, they said. Incapable of staying down, they said. Didn’t know how to just DIE like a decent person. That scrawny, bony teenaged apprentice had faced Jedi Knights and won simply because he wouldn’t accept a debilitating wound; to stop him, you had to kill him. Now he was a Darth and Arcann was not killing him. Nor was Arcann unphased by the injuries Scion was dishing out: a glancing blow here, a bone-rattling kick there, even, at one point, an old-fashioned back alley punch to the face. Every one of them seemed to make him angrier and less focused, and he was losing ground, even if it was only an inch at a time. But then Thexan’s saber sliced through the armor on her shoulder and seared her flesh, and Atroxa screamed in rage, and realized Scion’s bloodlust might be distracting her as much as it was distracting Arcann.

Her intent crystallized. Virulion realize what she was doing and move to assist her and she launched herself at Thexan, trusting her defense to the Blademaster’s apprentice. Thexan swept her strike aside and moved to riposte but abandoned the strike when Teleon came in from an oblique angle, forcing his defense low, then high, and with a scream of triumph Atroxa dragged her saber across his ribs. It was the thickest part of his armor. Her strike didn’t reach his skin, but it carved an opening he would have to protect, limiting his options even further. He was calm, but there was a tightness around his eyes, and she was still hooked into the current, connected to a source of unlimited power. She could win this battle by inches. She could go for DAYS. She bared her teeth to let him know it, and she saw the realization in his eyes.

He didn’t say anything, but Arcann gave an enraged howl. “NO! NO RETREAT!” He threw telekinesis at Scion even as he spun, releasing his lightsaber. Thexan ducked and it whirled over his head.   
  
With barely a thought, Teleon reached up with The Force and flung it off course. It disappeared into the clouds of blowing dust. ~ _ Bloody amateur hour,~ _ he thought with a surprised sort of exasperation, and Atroxa laughed. ~ _ Seriously,~ _ Teleon sent through the link. ~ _ Never throw your lightsaber. What even.~ _

They both heard the hum as it came whirling back, but it didn’t pass close to them again. Arcann had summoned it to his hand because Scion had once more deflected his telekinetic thrust and was closing on him despite it. Arcann gave up on that tactic when the saber slapped into his palm and they resumed fighting, even as Thexan stood guarded against Atroxa and Virulion.

“Arcann,” he said, his voice calm but ringing. “This won’t make Father….”   
  
“TO THE DEPTHS WITH FATHER,” Arcann bellowed, lashing out with a kick that hit Scion squarely in the chest. Tiny as he was he sailed backwards, but he managed to land on his feet, skidding wildly on the gravel dust.

“Ohhhh,” Scion mocked. “Daddy issues.”

“You,” Arcann growled, his deep voice resonating even over the howl of battle. “You are a worm. Irrelevant. Unworthy. I see your heart, SITH.” He sneered the word like something that wasn’t repeated in polite company. “You have been judged and found wanting. Your time is done. A new empire has risen.”   
  
Scion didn’t so much as waver. Not to Arcann’s face, not through the connection Atroxa held to his deepest thoughts. Arcann might as well have been talking to a brick wall. “Ask me if I give a fuck,” he retorted, and pulled The Force into himself, deepening his stance and then reaching out to twist the ground under Arcann’s feet. Arcann went down, and Thexan blew Atroxa and Virulion back a step to free himself to charge in. He almost wasn’t fast enough… Scion leaped into the air and gripped his saberstaff like a spear, crashing down onto Arcann like a skinny meteor. His saber was a darker shade of gold than Thexan’s and they sparked white where they met, humming violently against one another as Scion snarled and tried to push through. Thexan, in a position of poor leverage, held him off with shaking arms. Scion snarled, heaved, and spun his defense aside, slamming his saberstaff across Thexan’s back and knocking him into the dust. Arcann got hold of his saber and whipped it toward him, but Scion kicked his wrist and pinned it under his foot, leveling his staff at his throat.   
  
Arcann’s expression was hard, murderous.   
  
Under his mask, Scion’s was almost a perfect mirror. “Welcome to Korriban, mo’fucker,” he growled. “Came to the wrong fuckin rock,  _ trust _ .” 

He stabbed downward.

Arcann heaved. 

Scion’s saberstaff pierced the rock next to his throat as he rolled away, spitting sparks as the plasma turned the stone to magma. He carved a molten red furrow in the ground as he whipped his staff free. Arcann and Thexan both staggered to their feet and squared up.

Spitting curses, Scion squared up too. Next to him, Nox flexed her fingers. Lightning crackled between them. Atroxa, blood pounding in her temples and mid-way down her lekku, moved into position with Virulion.

Driven by maneuvering thrusters, the dust cleared around them and revealed the approach of more dark figures, blazes of red, purple, and orange breaking their silhouettes. One in front, carrying two lightsabers of House Ekari gold, resolved into an elegant Lethan twi’lek male whose Sith tattoos made him nearly Atroxa’s twin - Lord Blademaster Kryos Ekari-Passagos. 

This was Scion’s husband, Virulion’s master. When Thexan came to join Arcann, he’d vastly simplified Lord Kryos’ efforts leading reinforcements against Thexan’s forces. That he was here meant the invasion was being quelled. It meant the siege was as good as over.

Thexan looked between them and understood what Atroxa had just understood. Then he flicked his saber off and let it fall, folding his hands behind his head. “I yield.”    
  
Arcann exhaled sharply, but after a moment, glowering, he followed suite. “I yield,” he ground through his teeth, and when Scion took a threatening step toward him, he hit the ground on his knees.

Thexan descended more gracefully, but he did kneel, and he stayed there until Imperial troops arrived to put both of them in mag-binders. Only then was the circuit cut. It’s hum vanished and with it, the power, the connection, the shield against pain… Atroxa staggered, but then Nox’s arm was around her, and the Miraluka was smiling at her from behind that silver netting.

“I suppose I could kill you now,” Nox said playfully, her voice a little hoarse after all the effort, not to mention the dust. “But we’ve got a lot of clean-up ahead of us. I’m sure we could use the extra hand.”

Atroxa coughed a dry laugh, then raised her chin as Scion approached, flanked by his husband and his husband’s apprentice.

“Blademaster,” she greeted Kryos with courtesy.

  
He bowed to her, speaking in Ryl instead of Standard, as was his wont. “<Dark Councilor. The invasion forces are being swept from the lower valleys as we speak. This victory will not last. The Eternal Fleet will send sufficient reinforcements to create their battlenet. We should evacuate the planet.>”

“They’ll destroy it all again,” Atroxa told him. Her voice caught in her throat like gravel.

He inclined his head in acknowledgement. “<We will rebuild it all again. There is no shame in changing tactics to account for a strong enemy. And with the captives you have taken today, we are not devoid of bargaining power.>” He turned slightly, lekku swaying with grace she could only envy, to watch Thexan and Arcann being marched into an armored transport.

“On behalf o’the Sphere o’Defense o’the Empire,” Scion said, “And Darth Marr, we better team up and pry the truth out of ‘em. Anybody knows how to get through that battlenet, it’s those two. I got you,” he told Atroxa with a jerked incline of his chin, and she could feel the burning weight of his gaze even through the mask. Though their connection was lost, she also took his meaning - his telepathy, all brute force and no fine manipulation, was at her disposal to crack open the commanders’ skulls. A tool willingly surrendered because they had the same goal, and he’d enjoy it.

“I wish the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge could be of greater assistance,” Nox added, with some humor. “But rest assured, my lord… I will be here if you have need of me.”

_ So I’m not dying this day, _ Atroxa thought, and found a smile.

They all had plenty to get on with, though Nox insisted Atroxa needed to see a medic before she did anything else. As House Ekari moved to leave, Scion smacked Atroxa on the shoulder. “You held the line,” he remarked simply. “Well done. Nox,” he added belatedly. Then he gathered his family and disappeared into the dust clouds.

Beside Atroxa, Nox let out a heavy sigh. “Let’s have that wrist seen to,” she said, and walked Atroxa toward a transport. 

“How did you know to come?” Atroxa asked. She didn’t want to look a gift dewback in the mouth, but the sense of astonished relief she’d felt seeing Nox, Scion, and Virulion emerge from their Interceptor still rested heavy behind her breastbone. “They cut off all our communications. Destroyed the satellite net.”

“I felt it,” Nox confessed. She settled Atroxa into a landing seat and helped her strap in. “Visions of the invasion woke me from a dead sleep. As for Scion, his 209th was one of the closest fleet divisions in the caldera. We’re both fortunate he was planet-side, and able to call Lord Kryos back from the front.” She strapped in next to Atroxa. “Scion’s many things, but he’s always been a loyalist. I knew he wouldn’t play at politics if Korriban was in jeopardy.”

“I’ll have to remember to thank him,” Atroxa murmured, feeling the extraordinary weariness set in now that battle was past, and adrenaline dissipated. “And Darth Marr, for lending him.”

Nox laughed. “To be honest? I’m not sure he asked for permission, but Marr won’t mind. They’re stalwarts, both of them… stubborn as bloks, they’d defend these worlds to the bitter end.” Her words had the weight of knowledge. Atroxa was a relative newcomer to the Council, but even she knew that Nox and Marr were… close. Inveterate gossips, the Kaasi nobility even dared to speculate that Darth Nox might know what Marr concealed behind that ever-present mask. “I’m sure Scion would appreciate your voucher when he goes to ask forgiveness, though. Just to smooth things over.”

Atroxa let her eyes close as the transport lifted off, carrying them into orbit and to the 209th beyond. A voucher… he’d have that and more.

Her head settled on Nox’s pauldron, and Nox allowed it. The war had just begun. It might still take her life. But she wasn’t the only one standing in defiance of those who would destroy the Sith. And Atroxa, hurtling toward the stars, had never imagined what a comfort that knowledge would be.


End file.
